[cmh89]

>And it would in turn be worth noting that the creators of reddit had a philosophical and political commitment to free speech that drove their light-touch approach to moderation

That's nonsense. The Sears debacle showed that reddits leadership team was fine with deleting posts if it was going to cost them money to not delete them.

That 'political commitment to free speech' sure disappeared quickly when r/jailbait and u/violetacrez hit the main stream media.

spez was fine with hosting a community of child predators because it was one of the most popular subs. It was the top recommended result when you searched for reddit on google.

You can support free speech without actively providing a community for predators

[nicolas_t]

What was the Sears debacle?

[cmh89]

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9clji/where_did_...

reddit used to be owned by Conde Nast. Sears got upset about a post and complained to Conde Nast, who then told spez to take it down. If you have a political commitment to 'free speech' that folds if you might have to face some consequences for defending it, you don't have that strong of a commitment in my opinion. Certainly not strong enough to justify hosting a community of child predators

[paradox460]

Sears had an XSS injection issue, where you could change their breadcrumbs by manipulating the URLs. Some redditors changed and shared a link to a grill as a "Body part roaster" and had fun. Sears found out and got mad

https://www.techdirt.com/2009/08/21/reddit-sears-grills-that...